


Whatever I Could

by wakingupslow



Category: The Long Walk - Richard Bachman
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Kissing, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22317955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakingupslow/pseuds/wakingupslow
Summary: McVries didn’t say anything, but when Garraty looked at him, he was smiling a soft, sad smile. “Ray, I’m so tired.”“Sleep on me,” Garraty said. “Just put your head on my shoulder. I won’t let you fall.”~~When Garraty realizes how much McVries means to him, he decides dying with him is preferable to a lifetime without him. So he convinces McVries to walk off his last three warnings.And the Crowd watches.Because while the Crowd demands blood, there's only one thing that captures attention more than human suffering.
Relationships: Ray Garraty & Peter McVries, Ray Garraty/Peter McVries
Comments: 25
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter One

_McVries’ head had dropped, and he was walking at the crowd, fast asleep._

_“Hey!” Garraty shouted. “Hey, Pete. Pete!”_

_“Let him alone,” Stebbins said. “You made the promise like the rest of us.”_

_“Fuck you,” Garraty said distinctly, and darted to McVries’ side. He touched McVries’ shoulders, setting him straight again. McVries looked up at him sleepily and smiled. “No, Ray. It’s time to sit down.”_

_Terror pounded Garraty’s chest. “No! No way!”_

_McVries shook his head, so mildly it might have been a trick of the light. “I’m done.”_

“No, w-wait, listen to me, just listen for a second.” 

McVries was on his third warning. They might not even have seconds. But he did listen. 

“I don’t want to die alone, Pete. Please. Will you- will you just wait for me? Please?”

McVries took a few wobbly steps. Just to finish the conversation. To keep the timer at bay. “You aren’t going to die at all, Ray. You’re going to outlast him. You’re going to live.”

“I’m _not_ , Pete. I’m not, and if you go down now, I’m going to sit right down and end this whole thing.”

McVries shook his head in disgust, still limping forwards. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. Don’t throw it away.”

“You mean like you are?” Garraty snapped. 

“I knew what I was getting into.”

“Yeah well, you know what? So did I. I knew, a part of me always knew, and now we’re at death’s fucking door, and I know it, Pete. I _know_ it. I can’t outlast Stebbins. _Look at him_.”

Garraty flung a hand out towards Stebbins, who was walking along steadily, confidently, like he’d set out for a Sunday stroll just that morning. 

McVries tightened his lips, but didn’t argue. So, he knew. Even if he didn’t want to know. 

“I know what I’m asking,” Garraty went on. “God, believe me, I know it. But I don’t want to die alone.”

McVries stumbled, and whimpered in agony. “You’re asking me to walk three more hours?”

_At least_ , Garraty thought. Three hours without a slip up. If that was even achievable. 

Maybe he was asking the impossible. 

Maybe he was only bargaining in the hopes that he could keep McVries alive. 

Maybe he was hoping that, somehow, Stebbins would go, and then maybe Garraty could go, too. 

There was only one thing he knew for sure: somehow, in just the last day since he’d made that bitch of a promise not to help anyone (or had it been a year? It was hard to say anymore) it was no longer comprehendible to abandon McVries. There was only one important thing. Only one thing that mattered. McVries, and keeping him by his side for the rest of his life. However little of it he had left.  
Garraty slung his arm around McVries back, holding him at the waist. “I’ll help you keep the pace up.”

“I’m being raised like a lamb for slaughter,” McVries said dully. “How romantic.”

“Yeah, I’m a real Casanova.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, or hours, then McVries burst out laughing. Garraty glanced at him in alarm, but McVries waved a hand. “Oh, goddamnit, don’t worry. _Goddamnit_. I just realized I missed a joke about you fattening me up. Like a lamb. Fattening. Get it?”

Garraty grinned. At least McVries had a little life back in him. “I get it.”

“Like _chub_.”

“Got it, Pete.”

“My talents are wasted on this audience.” McVries waved a dismissive hand, then his smile drifted. Garraty tightened his grip on him, and they went on. 

McVries had started to wear down again by the time he’d walked off one warning. Garraty felt his weight getting heavier, his feet dragging. Harder and harder for Garraty to pull him along at speed.

Garraty tried desperately to distract him, and to keep him talking. It only half-worked. 

“Perverts,” McVries said suddenly. 

Garraty looked around. The Crowd was as it ever was, a swarming entity. No perverts as far as Garraty could see. Unless he was referring to the sheer perversion of watching humans die for fun after a nice meal. That he could get around. “Who? Huh?”

“You said perverts. A while ago. That queer people are perverts.”

“Oh hell, Pete, I was only joking.”

“Were you?” McVries was panting, like they were sprinting up a hill. But it was totally flat. “Because I wasn’t, you know.”

“Yeah. I think I knew.”

“So,” he caught his breath for a pause. “What the fuck have you got against us, anyway?”

It was true. McVries really was a sucker for pain. He asked it like he wanted Garraty to hurt him, to say he thought it was unnatural, or disgusting. 

No, that wasn’t true. He asked it like he _expected_ Garraty to say that. 

But Garraty rather felt that wasn’t what McVries _wanted_ him to say at all. 

And with death walking by their side, whistling a merry tune, Garraty felt the only thing worth his time anymore was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.  
“When I was a kid, me and a friend . . . we took off each other’s clothes, and we . . . we were kids, you know? But Mom caught us and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that mad, Pete. It’s the first time I thought, hey, maybe she doesn’t love me unconditionally, you know?”

“That’s a bitch of a way to feel,” McVries agreed. 

“Right. And she loves Jan. Jan’s like a daughter to her.”

Garraty was telling the truth all right. But the question was, did McVries see the truth in the words Garraty wasn’t brave enough to vocalize? 

“Your mom loves Jan,” McVries repeated. “How about you?”

“Does she love me? I’m pretty sure—”

“No, you jackass,” McVries grinned, then coughed. “Do you love Jan?”

Garraty’s heart sank. 

Wasn’t it the ultimate betrayal, somehow, to say he didn’t love his girlfriend on his last day on earth?

What if it were one of the last things he ever said?

How would he explain that to God, at the end of it all? Standing at the gates, begging to be let in, and having to explain that, yes, he’d said he never loved Jan. Yes, that was because . . . because . . . 

Suddenly, he saw the ridiculousness in the whole concept. 

Like you could fool God— _God_ —by pretending to fall in love. 

He really was a fucking jackass. 

“No,” Garraty said. “I fucking wish I did—I’d chop off my left foot for it to be that simple—but love her? No. I don’t. I can’t. I’ve tried.”

McVries snorted. “Ray, you’re barely getting through as is, I don’t think you wanna give up your left foot so easy.”

“My point is, there were cameras on us. I’m sorry I freaked out, but, fuck, Pete. I don’t want to die wondering if my mom still loves me.”

McVries frowned at the ground. For a terrifying moment, Garraty thought he might move to push him away, like he’d done so many times over the past several days. Like he did when he felt pushed away himself. But instead, sucker for punishment he was, he pressed the point. “I get that. I really do. And, you know what? If that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel. But I just wanna counter-argue that you’ve got less than two hours left of your too-short life to go, and then there won’t be any more. Any more anything. And if it were me, I’d rather die knowing I did whatever I could. Because even if I die doing nothing, with everyone satisfied with my restraint? That’s not gonna benefit me a whole fucking lot, because I’m fucking dead.”

Garraty understood. He couldn’t reply—he just couldn’t, not yet—but he nodded, and squeezed McVries’ waist. And for that moment, it was enough to keep McVries from pulling away. 

The Crowd roared and stared and stared and roared. 

It was freeing, Garraty thought, to say he didn’t love Jan. It was the first time he’d dared admit it to himself, let alone someone else. But McVries was safe. As safe as Garraty’s own mind. 

For so long now, he’d reasoned why Jan was love. Jan was love because she was kind, and it was good to have kind people in your life. Jan was love because her sweaters were soft, and texture was important, right? He loved the feel of her sweater beneath his fingers, which meant he loved touching her. That was how love worked, right? Jan was love because she smelled like sugared flowers, and he loved that smell, which meant he loved her smell. Right? 

But gradually, right had started to feel wrong. More than that, even: he knew, with a grave certainty, that it was wrong. 

Jan was kind, but McVries had a wild, charismatic energy about him that made Garraty feel awake and alert and like life had color, and maybe before that everything had been strangely unsaturated.  
Jan’s sweaters were soft, but when McVries touched him with strong hands, and wrenched him to safety, and touched him softly to calm him, nothing existed but his touch. His body was a shell that only sensed so McVries could _be_ sensed. And he now knew with clarity the reason he hadn’t wanted McVries to touch him _that way_ was because deep down, he knew it would feel so, so different to Jan. Because at that point he wouldn’t have been able to deny it anymore. 

McVries didn’t have a smell, per se—or else, he probably did, and they all definitely did, but he’d long lost the ability to tell. But when McVries turned to him and spoke, or stood in Garraty’s orbit, the warmth and comfort of it all made Garraty feel like maybe this is what life was meant to be like. Objectively, there was a word for that—he’d learned about it in Biology— _pheromones_. My body chose your body as its home. And it recognizes you. 

And McVries was right. Pretending that this was all untrue didn’t make it so. And it certainly didn’t do Garraty any favors. The only people who won were those in the Crowd and beyond. And, truthfully? Fuck every single one of them. None of them was having their only life snatched short today. 

Garraty turned to McVries to tell him so just as McVries’ knees gave out. He fell to the ground with a strangled cry, clutching onto Garraty as he went down. 

Up ahead, Stebbins glanced over his shoulder, curiously. 

The Crowd screamed for blood. 

“Pete,” Garraty yelped as he was pulled to the ground. “Are you okay?”

McVries shuddered, and squeezed his eyes shut, half-panting, half-sobbing. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I—”

“You have to. Please. _Please_.”

McVries opened his eyes and stared up at Garraty. “ _Why?_ ”

The seconds were ticking away. Each second dragging them further from Garraty’s goal. Garraty couldn’t explain, barely knew himself, all he knew was a jumbled mixture of hope and desperation and fear and none of it made sense, none of it could be put into words, so he grabbed McVries’ collar and kissed him, hard and rough. 

And it felt nothing like kissing Jan. McVries’ lips were soft, and his hands were strong as they landed on Garraty’s shoulders, and McVries’ moan of surprise was deep and thick. And, thank the Lord and everything that was good, it got him standing again. He rose to his feet, chest pressed against Garraty—who walked backwards, no time wasted—and kissed him like a starving man, a donkey chasing a carrot. A lamb suddenly all too eager to be raised. 

Garraty could’ve stayed like this until they walked off the edge of the continent, but an urgent voice told him they needed to pick up the pace, _pick it up, pick it up_. He broke away from McVries and turned back to face the road, to face the Crowd—which was thriving and writhing like he’d never seen, not even when Parker ticketed the soldier. 

Between them, McVries’ hand was linked with Garraty’s. 

Ahead of them, Stebbins was staring at them. There was something odd in his face. Something akin to betrayal. 

_Two versus one._

Garraty couldn’t tell him it was a lie. Even if he did think the one would win. 

“Ray,” McVries forced out, keeping pace once more. 

“Yeah?”

“Tell me that wasn’t what it was. Tell me you only did it to get me up again. Tell me.”

Down the road, not too far down the road, the cameras blinked. 

“No,” Garraty said. 

McVries didn’t say anything, but when Garraty looked at him, he was smiling a soft, sad smile. “Ray, I’m so tired.”

“Sleep on me,” Garraty said. “Just put your head on my shoulder. I won’t let you fall.”

And McVries did. And Garraty hooked his arm around the back of his head and stroked his thick, soft hair methodically. Lulled him to sleep beneath his fingertips. 

By eight that evening they were walking through Danvers. McVries had been asleep for over an hour now. Garraty felt that was more than fair. He’d agreed to stay alive for Garraty, but that didn’t mean he had to consciously suffer through it, did it? 

They weren’t far off, now. Soon, both Garraty and McVries would be at zero warnings. And then they would finally be able to sit. Finally. The thought terrified Garraty, but at the same time, it was a relief. No more pain. No more walking. Just lying with McVries. Being with him. Everyone had to go sooner or later. And as far as exits from the world, he couldn’t think of many better. 

Better timing, sure. But life was filled with bad timing. 

If only he and McVries had met each other earlier. 

If only the twelfth walker hadn’t pulled out, so McVries never entered this death trap. 

If only Garraty had seen some sense, and valued his own fucking life over his ego. His stupid fucking ego and his stupid childish confidence. 

Stebbins was going to outlast both of them. And, well, he deserved it, didn’t he? He’d always deserved it. More so than Garraty, if not more so than McVries. 

Stebbins was limping ahead, looking emaciated, and exhausted. Garraty suddenly got the urge to let him know that he and McVries were almost up. That they would be going together, and Stebbins would be free. It felt kind to give Stebbins that light at the end of the tunnel. The assurance that the agony was almost over. It was all almost over. 

But Garraty didn’t get the chance. At that moment Stebbins’ knees buckled, and he crumpled to the ground, one hand propping himself up, the other clutching frantically at his chest. Looking around at the Crowd, imploring for help. 

Then looking back at Garraty. Eyes panicked, then grave.

Garraty couldn’t help. He was holding up McVries. And he wouldn’t let McVries fall for anyone. Not anyone. 

They passed Stebbins, whose head lolled forward. 

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

Thunderclaps. 

Garraty forced his mind to scramble through the fog, to work through this changing puzzle. 

Because this _did_ change everything. 

But he wouldn’t bother Pete just yet. Not until it was time. 

Only fifteen more minutes. 

God, the poor thing hadn’t even stirred when Stebbins was shot. Hadn’t a clue. 

They were learning a new kind of exhaustion. One that humans weren’t meant to be intimately acquainted with.

Tick. 

Tick. 

Tick. 

“Pete,” Garraty whispered. “ _Pete?”_

_“What?”_ McVries grumbled, not opening his eyes. 

“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

McVries groaned and nestled his head deeper into Garraty’s neck. “I’m listening.”

“Stebbins is gone. I need you to keep walking.”

McVries pulled his head out of the gap sharply. Garraty’s skin felt cold in his absence, cried out in protest. “ _What?”_

He looked around, did a full three-sixty turn, as though he expected to find Stebbins hiding in the Crowd somewhere. 

But there was no one to find. 

McVries turned terrified eyes back around to Garraty. “No.”

“Pete, please—”

_“No.”_

__

__

_“It’s got to be one of us!”_

Mcvries shook his head, tears of exhaustion and fury glassing his eyes. “No, _you said_ you were dragging me along all that way so you didn’t have to die alone.”

“I wasn’t lying, I thought Stebbins—”

“ _You thought, you thought,_ too fucking bad! You can go _fuck_ yourself if you think you’re forcing me to watch you die, now, Ray. That is _not_ what I stuck around for.”

“Pete, you have a little sister. Your parents are staying in that motel. They need to take you home, they _need_ you—”

“And your mom doesn’t? Fuck you. You’re being so _fucking_ selfish.”

Garraty laughed in disbelief. “ _Selfish?”_

“I wanted to sit down so long ago, and you forced me, you _dragged_ me all that way, and I did it for you. Why the _fuck_ do you think I did that, huh? You think you put yourself through fucking torture for someone who doesn’t mean shit to you? I lived for you, and you can sure as fuck bet I’m going to die for you, too.”

The words hung heavy between them. Garraty’s heart was racing, because this was wrong, and it was all falling apart, and there was no solution. There was nothing. 

“Pete, you don’t understand” Garraty said desperately. “I don’t want to go back without you. I won’t. I don’t have any interest in it.”

“So, what, you’re gonna fucking die because you didn’t get your way? Grow up.”

“How is that _any different_ to you doing it?”

“Because I’m _worthless_ ,” Pete shouted, throwing his hands up into the black air above them. “And I love you.”

Garraty fell silent as he shuffled through everything he knew about McVries, searching for any useful piece of emotional blackmail he had in his arsenal, _anything_ that could convince him to walk on without him. 

“I’m sitting, Ray,” McVries said, halting to a stop. Garraty stopped with him, in step. 

“You sit, I sit.”

The timers were going backwards now. Everything they did from this moment on, everything, would have to be step for step. Or else they risked someone else making the decision for them.  
McVries faced him, standing. Cupped Garraty’s face in his soft hands. Pulled him in for a slow, lingering kiss. 

_Pheromones._

Garraty’s body recognized his. 

“I need you to live,” McVries said softly, curling his thumb over Garraty’s cheek. “I need this.”

Garraty shook his head. “I just want to be with you. It wouldn’t be any life. No life at all.”

It was the truth. 

McVries hesitated, then dropped his hands. “Okay,” he said, climbing to the ground. 

Garraty joined him. 

Relief and pain as the blood rushed. Agony, as his feet adjusted. As his back bent.

_Warning! First warning, 61._

_Warning! First warning, 47._

They lay facing each other, serenaded by the Crowd’s frenzy. 

I’d rather die knowing I did whatever I could.

Garraty’s hands found their way beneath McVries shirt,. The skin of his back was warm and slick with sweat but unbearably soft and delicate, in a way McVries’ factory hands never could be. McVries hands were at his own back, pulling him in, pressing their bodies together. Shivers ran down Garraty’s spine, competing with the shots of electric smarting, creating a heady mixture of pleasure and pain. 

Garraty kissed McVries with a ferocity, tasting his tongue, biting the cushion of his lip. They pressed their hips together, and they were both hard as rocks (like Jimmy) but no it was nothing like that, because he’d been a fucking _child_ and he hadn’t known what he was doing, and now he knew, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he’d never wanted anything more desperately. So urgent he could scream. He could kill. 

“God, Ray,” McVries breathed, pressing his lips hot and wet against Garraty’s neck. He ran his tongue along Garraty’s skin and Garraty bucked in response, begging for something they couldn’t have. Something there was no time for. 

“Touch me,” he said anyway, his voice thick and shaking. “Please.”  
_  
Warning! Second warning, 61._

_Warning! Second warning, 47._

McVries’ hand slid between them, hidden from the Crowd. Worked quickly beneath Garraty’s fly, cupping him, warm, perfect pressure, and it was unbelievable, it was, it was—

“God, yes,” McVries breathed, his teeth grazing Garraty’s Adam’s apple and they hadn’t needed time. Garraty was vaguely aware of a kind of gratitude that their bodies hid the exact location of McVries’ hand, but then it didn’t matter, not really, nothing mattered but this, and Garraty choked and gasped and the roaring of the Crowd melted into a roaring inside his head and colors flashed intermittently with a bright white. Somewhere in the distance, Garraty could hear himself whimpering, unable to catch his breath, and then all he could see were McVries’ beautiful, thick-lashed eyes. He’d never seen affection like that. 

Timing really was a bitch. 

As soon as Garraty caught his breath back, the boys sobered.  
_  
Warning! Third warning, 61._

_Warning! Third warning, 47._

Thirty seconds left. 

They did go fast. 

_Not much time at all._

“I love you, too,” Garraty whispered. 

McVries smiled, and brushed a piece of hair out of Garraty’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Their heartbeats slowed. 

Their foreheads touched. 

The ground was solid and hard beneath them. 

Soon, they’d be floating. 

_Please, please don’t let it hurt._

_Please let it be fast._

Somewhere in the distance, the roar of the Crowd changed. It was an angry, vicious thing, closing in on Garraty from all sides. The orchestra he was to die by. What kind of cruel twist was this? When every other walker died to cheers and salutations, for he and McVries to die to jeers and protestations? This, it struck Garraty wildly, was the kind of soundtrack one might expect on their march into hell. Was he already dead, then? Had it already happened?

But no. McVries was still there, solid warmth beneath his hands. Eyes closed. 

Eyes closed. _No._

Garraty shook him, panic and anger rising through his chest. “Pete. _Pete_. Wake up. Wake _up_ , damnit. We were supposed . . . to do this together. Don’t make me go alone. _Don’t make me go alone.”_  
It was unfair, unsporting, really, to drag McVries back to consciousness just so he could be aware of his own death. But Garraty wasn’t thinking clearly enough to care. All he knew was he’d walked all that way, all those extra steps, so he wouldn’t have to die alone and now McVries had betrayed him, and he was shaking him by the shoulders, and cupping his cheek, the smooth scar raised underneath Garraty’s palm, and McVries’ eyes stayed closed. If it weren’t for the soft puff of air that escaped his lips, Garraty would’ve been sure McVries had simply, quietly died. 

And they had seconds left. If that. 

There was nothing else to do. Garraty squeezed his own eyes shut and pressed his forehead against McVries’, heart hammering and jaw weak and fingertips burning. Waited. Took his last few breaths and marvelled at the feel of them. At how wonderful it was to breathe in unlimited air, to have it fill his lungs and power his body. And he wondered why he’d never noticed before. 

The Crowd fell quiet. 

Then grew even louder. 

Garraty couldn’t even tell if the shouts were joyful or furious anymore. They just were. 

Time to go, he supposed. 

Something touched his shoulder. He jumped, and shook it off, but the touch was firm. The voice familiar. “Time to stand, now, son.”

Garraty shook his head. “No. No, he’s still alive.”

“Yes. Now, come on up.”

“No, no, you don’t understand. He’s still alive. I didn’t win, because we went down together, and he’s alive. You can’t do this.”

The hand pulled away, then returned to scoop Garraty up from under his arms. Garraty shouted and screamed, matching the frenzied volume of the Crowd, reaching for McVries limp body as he was pulled away. “No, _no_ , NO, YOU CAN’T DO THIS, PLEASE. WE WENT DOWN TOGETHER. PLEASE. NO! DON’T HURT HIM, PLEASE.”

The Crowd was screaming, and Garraty was screaming. On the road in front of them was a stationary jeep. The hands that held him, had pulled him to his feet, belonged to the Major. The Major, who looked down at Garraty with a kind face, before patting him on the shoulder. _Good boy. There’s a good boy._

People swarmed McVries where he lay on the road. Not the Crowd. Not the soldiers. Four men and women dressed in forest-green. Tipping his head back, checking his mouth, checking his throat. Where were the guns?

Garraty looked around in a haze. The soldiers stood down. The Crowd jumped and cheered, arms waving and banners flying and men dipping their girls for a victory kiss. 

The Major was facing the Crowd, chin high and feet planted firmly. “Let it never be said I don’t listen to my people,” he shouted, his tone pleasant. The Crowd roared back. “You asked, I delivered. I am but here to serve.”

_Bullshit,_ Garraty thought, but the words didn’t make it out of his mouth. 

“I proclaim this year’s Long Walk at an end. Ladies and Gentlemen – citizens – behold your winner!”

They were taking Mcvries away. Putting him in the back of a van that had pulled up near the jeep. Garraty tried to get to him, but some of the men broke away from McVries. Grabbed Garraty by his upper arms. Said something, something, but Garraty couldn’t hear. Couldn’t hear anything over the Crowd. 

Suddenly, he became aware of his feet. An agony of glass and fire and acid. A bruise that started in his toes and swept up through his body, darkening everything. That familiar, dizzy, lightheaded sensation. But there was no McVries to pull him back to the present. McVries was gone. 

So Garraty let the darkness come.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garraty wakes up.

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

White. 

A white light?

 _The_ white light?

No. Fluorescent lights.

Hospital lights. 

His mother, sitting by the bed. 

_Ray, sweetie, hi. Hi, baby. How are you?_

Her face haloed. 

Floating. 

_Another time, another place._

Sheets tucked in tight around him. Binding him in place. Trapping him. 

He couldn’t escape. Couldn’t. Tried to move, to set himself free. His mother placed a hand on his arm. Pressed him back flat. 

_Just lie still._

_Need to rest._

_Nurses. In. out._

Prickling in his hand. Cold and prickling. IV drip. 

Feeding poison into his hand. 

Blackness. 

_It’s only rain, right Garraty?_

Blood. Blood pouring out of Baker’s nose. 

Blood exploding out of skulls. Exposed Jawbones. Fraying flesh. Bullets. 

_Right, Garraty?_

_RIGHT?_

Shot awake. Bright white. 

His mother was still by his side. Her eyes were closed. 

Like McVries. 

“Mom.” Crackled voice. Distant. “ _Mom.”_

Eyes opened. 

Nurses in. 

“You’re awake.” Her voice was soft. “How are you feeling?”

A nurse was fiddling with his drip. 

“What are you doing?” he asked. Raised his head. Heavy as lead. It smacked back down on the pillow.

A touch on his shoulder. “Sweetie?”

Garraty shook his shoulder. “What are you _doing?”_

The nurse looked up. Smiled a warm smile. An empty smile. A lying smile. “Morphine. We gotta stay on top of it.”

Garraty shook his head. Snapped to look at his mother. “Why do they want me asleep?”

A confused look. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

But no, she didn’t understand. She didn’t know they were liars. They were planning something. They were keeping him here, keeping him alive for. . . 

Something . . . 

Blackness. 

_He wanted us all up there with him, Garraty._

_Drop down dead, Tubby!_

_Not yet, you whores!_

Bullets. 

Falling. 

Dead. 

Dead. 

There was nothing but death. 

Black night. 

Bright light. 

Fluorescent light. 

His mother’s kind, worn face. 

More alive than he’d seen it in months. 

Years. 

When he’d survived, she’d survived. 

The Garraty that’d entered the walk felt foreign. Like a child. How could one-week-older Garraty have been so stupid? So selfish. He could’ve—would’ve—killed her. They all did. They all killed everyone who loved him. For what? For one long game of Russian Roulette?

Or had he just wanted to die?

He didn’t know anymore. 

“Mom.” His voice was thin, raspy. Underused. How long had he been here now? “Where’s Peter?”

Something flashed across her expression. “He’s in another room.”

“He’s still here?”

“No, another room.”

She didn’t understand him. “No, but . . . but he’s _here?_ ”

Confusion. 

Then clarity. 

She squeezed his hand. “He’s alive, yes.”

Oh thank God, thank Jesus, thank-

“. . . Mom?”

“Mm?”

“Do you still love me?”

Garraty's voice came out small. His mother looked down at him in surprise, her mouth a small ‘o’. “Of course I do, Ray. Always. I will _always_ love you.”

Relief. 

Relief, and brief safety. 

The room came into more focus. His mother wore a dark grey sweater. It matched the iron-grey of her wiry hair. To the other side of him, machines that meant nothing. Displaying numbers that meant nothing. Numbers that represented just how alive he was. 

For ninety-eight of them, their numbers read zero. 

Why him? 

Why did he get numbers?

There was nothing special about him. He was just Garraty. He had no real talents, had done no great deeds. He was just Garraty with the squadded father and timid mother. Garraty who’d once loved his best friend, and who’d taken his clothes off with him, and—no, best not to think about that. Garraty, who wanted to love his girlfriend but couldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. 

His girlfriend. 

Was she that?

Garraty raised a heavy head on an aching neck. “Where’s Jan?”

This time, the expression on his mother’s face was easier to read. Sadness, a touch of reproach. “She felt it was best that she not come.”

Best. 

Yes, it probably was best. 

At some point she would ask. Whether he and McVries had been real, or whether it was the desperate loneliness of approaching death. And he would say, _Jan, honestly, it was both._

_I’m sorry, Jan._

Because, frankly, there was no contest. 

When given the choice to die with McVries or live with Jan, he’d chosen the former. 

And now he’d been offered life, _life_ , after signing up for death, _deserving_ death? He couldn’t go back to pretending. He couldn’t choose the life he’d so firmly rejected on the road. 

And Jan would never understand, anyway. She couldn’t understand that from now on, wherever Garraty went, he walked with ninety-eight ghosts. He walked alongside an omnipresent crowd.  
He would walk. He had walked. He will have walked. 

In the white, bright room, time had no meaning. There were no watches, no clocks. No sunrise, no sunset. Just a parade of nurses checking his numbers, checking his feet—feet which didn’t hurt, because of an IV cocktail (and here, it was _always_ Happy Hour), but which Garraty was too terrified to survey—checking his sanity. 

_Name?_

_Ray Garraty._

_Age?_

_Sixteen._

_What month is it?_

_May—I think. It’s still May, right?_

_Mother’s name?_

_Anne Garraty._

_Father’s name?_

_My father doesn’t matter anymore._

Nods—they liked that answer. 

The Major would be proud. 

There was a television in the corner of the room. As Garraty’s lucid moments became longer, they started to leave it on. For entertainment, he supposed. 

It didn’t do much entertaining. But it did tell him what no one else seemed to know how to. 

The news would often start with a highlight reel. _Best of_ , moments. The most exciting deaths. 

His friend’s most exciting deaths. 

Boom. Boom. Boom. 

_That was a good one._

_That one was unexpected. None of us saw that coming._

_Then he just dropped, didn’t he, Linda?_

_He sure did! Bang out of nowhere!_

_Bang_

_Bang_

_Bang_

__  
Then, a different angle.

McVries and Garraty, holding hands. 

McVries leaning his head on Garraty’s shoulder as they shuffled. 

McVries gently brushing a strand of hair from Garraty’s face as they lay and waited to die. 

Those shots, it turned out, had saved their lives. 

The Long Walk had always entertained through death. But historically, only few things had ever captured the minds of the masses more than death and suffering. And that was a love story. 

Within the Crowd, from the start, had been people noticing. Noticing the glances between them. Noticing McVries wrench Garraty away from death more than once. Noticing how their steps began to fall in time, how their fingertips would brush, how they would hold whispered conversations for hours and hours. 

And slowly at first, then frantically, the Crowd became invested in Ray Garraty and Peter Mcvries. They no longer rejoiced at the thought of one of—or both of—their deaths. The only thing the Crowd demanded was their closeness. 

And Garraty and McVries, completely unwittingly, had provided. Right up to what would have—should have—been their last moments. 

But the Crowd, ravenous and insistent and large enough in size and strength that it could’ve taken down the half-tracks if it became single-minded, demanded. And though the television never acknowledged the underlying message—that the Major wasn’t stupid, the Major knew a bloodbath would occur if the Crowd stormed the road as one, and this would place him and The People on opposite teams, whereas up ‘til then they’d pursued a common goal: death. 

If the Crowd demanded life, the Major had to comply. 

Because the Status Quo—where the Major remained ostensibly on the same side as his People? That was worth far more than a single case of life or death could ever be. 

Because God forbid the Crowd ever try to overturn the Major and his soldiers and realize they were, in fact, the ones with the power. The strength in numbers. 

A placated crowd was a crowd that never tried to fight. Never learned it could win a fight. 

And, really, wasn’t that safer for all?

As often as he dared, Garraty would look to his mother—today wearing a purple dress—today wearing a bottle-green sweater—today wearing a v-neck blouse—and implore her. 

_Please. Please, can I see Pete?_

And one day—or maybe, by that point, it was one week—instead of changing the subject, his mother glanced at the attending nurse. 

The man stood in green scrubs, stark against the white walls. He nodded, and something inside Garraty was no longer calm. 

His mother and the nurse had a code. They’d had conversations without him. What did they know that he didn’t? 

McVries had been murdered. Taken out back and shot execution-style. His beautiful face ripped apart, right down the middle. 

They’d kept him alive, only to kill him.

Like Garraty had done to McVries. 

This was his punishment. 

Warm, wet tears slid down Garraty’s cheeks. He couldn’t control them, couldn’t switch it off. Everything was wrong. The nurse gently slid the needle from Garraty’s arm, and another came in. Together they pulled the sheets back. 

They were taking him somewhere. 

Outside. 

To shoot him. 

The Major had never planned on letting him live. He only wanted The Crowd to think they were safe. Now, The Crowd had dispersed, and there was no one left to protect him. 

He just wanted McVries. 

Garraty fell limp as he was lifted out of bed and into a wheelchair. There was no point in fighting. And he was tired. He was still so tired. He could sleep for years and he would still be tired. 

He was wheeled out into a bright, fluorescent, white hallway. 

The Crowd had been waiting for him. 

They lined the halls, shouting and jeering and holding up homemade _Go Go Garraty_ banners. To his right, by one of the doors, a man held out a chunk of watermelon. But Garraty wasn’t hungry. 

The wheels creaked and squeaked on the linoleum floors, and behind him soldiers boomed. “Third warning. Third warning, number. . .”

_Bang._

_Bang._

_Bang._  
  
Garraty didn’t want to look behind him to see who’d bought his ticket. 

Baker?

Stebbins?

Parker?

The crowd cheered, loud and frenzied. The white walls spattered with blood. 

Garraty’s mother walked by his side. Didn’t flinch at the gunshots. Didn’t wince at the volume of the screaming. 

Did she want him dead, too?

Was this all because he’d chosen Jan over her from the Crowd?

 _It was only to prove something,_ Garraty thought. _It wasn’t personal, Mom. I just had to prove Stebbins wrong._

_You got a touch of queer?_

_Lavender?_

Yes, well, maybe so. 

Maybe that part wasn’t so wrong. 

“Here we are,” the nurse said, opening one of the dozens of identical doors. 

They wheeled Garraty into another white room. Identical to his. 

Maybe they’d only wheeled him back to his own. 

There were the machines. The machines with _numbers_ that had no right to be there. 

Three unfamiliar people, sitting on the ratty loveseat against the wall. Sober, and nervous. A blonde woman, a brunette man, and a little girl resting her head in the woman's lap as she slept.

In the center of the room, a bed. A bed with a body in it. A body as familiar as any he’d known. Brown hair. Long arms folded over a chest.

His body.

Had he already died?

When had that happened?

Had he ever left the walk?

Would he ever stop walking?

But then his body sat up and looked at him. 

And it was black hair, not brown. 

And it wasn’t. It wasn’t him. 

It wasn’t a corpse at all. 

It was McVries. Tired, bloodshot eyes with bruised bags beneath them. A smile, weak and crooked. Arms that had once been strong, and would one day be strong again, propping up his torso. 

The boys stared at each other for a long moment. All around them, the Crowd roared and roared. 

“Ray,” McVries said softly, wonderingly, reaching out a hand. 

And the Crowd disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh it's been YEARS since I wrote anything fanfic related! Like, well over a decade "years". Closer to two decades, really. It was so freeing to write something for just myself, and for the people who share my very niche interest. I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> P.S - Yes this universe lacks normalized homophobia. Ray's mother is, in fact, an outlier. And in a world where children are murdered in front of spectators and people are kidnapped in the night for disagreeing with the government, it's one of the very sanest parts.


End file.
